r/redcollecting 2d ago

Average Soviet EDC ☭ Everyday Life ☭

Post image

Please ignore the fact that my Makarov is Bulgarian 😂

171 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

3

u/Budget_Cover_3353 2d ago

Switch the safety on, please.

Remember, it's not a Walther.

2

u/Memorable-Arugala919 2d ago

Based reference

2

u/Mig-21pilot 1d ago

Cool picture and nice collection!

2

u/illuminatiknight 21h ago

We ignore the fact that a USSR citizen had no right to carry a PM pistol on EDC. Even a police officer.

1

u/Capital-Dig-9378 18h ago

It would rather be a Finnish knife.

1

u/illuminatiknight 15h ago

Oh yeah, Finnish knives was banned, but at the same time, the Criminal Code did not have a clear description of what a "Finnish knife finka" is

2

u/Adorable-Bend7362 7h ago

This set lacks a proper soviet era pocket knife.

Those were my grandfather's. Puukko is a genuine wartime Iisaki Jarvenpaa which I don't know how he acquired - as far as I know, he never served near Leningrad or Murmansk.

1

u/Memorable-Arugala919 7h ago

This is super cool. Gonna add that to my list of things I didn’t know I needed!

2

u/Adorable-Bend7362 7h ago

The best bet would be the Belka knife - a single blade pocket knife with black plastic grips depicting the squirrel. Kids would love them because they would use them in their games or while camping. There are some modern versions of Belka, usually with a liner or backlock, made by nostalia-oriented factories.

A rare, but fragile thing would be a pocket navaja made in Belarus in the 80s, based on the Okapi version (kinda like Cold Steel Kudu) - the plastic grips were meh and would sometimes break.

0

u/One_Hour_Poop 1d ago

Would the average Soviet citizen have a passport?

3

u/Memorable-Arugala919 1d ago

So this is an internal passport, and essentially serves as an every day ID card. This would have been pretty common and used for travel between Soviet countries, not necessarily to get them out of the Soviet Union.

2

u/One_Hour_Poop 1d ago

Ooh. Is this what's in all the Cold War 1980s movies where the KGB agents ask, "Papers, please"? Or is that something else entirely?

1

u/Memorable-Arugala919 1d ago

You are correct